Is it possible for stories from 400 years ago to offer parallels with the lives of teenagers today?

Take, for example, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream – between them they offer extraordinary insights into the issues that that have been faced across time.

Unfortunately the language used in these masterpieces of literature are often a barrier when it comes to using the plays with pupils as part of our reference to the universality of the problems and issues that people face.

Overcome this problem and we have the perfect teaching resource through which the for-better-or-for-worse decisions that everyone has to face. Students can then explore the various courses of action that both they and characters can take.

In short the students watch the characters’ mistakes and learn from them, without having to interpret the language that Shakespeare used in writing the plays.

Working with Will is a scheme of work for PSHE teachers where the topics on the KS3 and KS4 curricula are explored.

Working with Will is also a scheme of work for English teachers and works as an introduction to text analysis in English literature lessons for key stages 3 and 4.

The 179 page volume contains three schemes of work – each of which can stand alone – with a series of lesson plans that can be used sequentially or can be dipped in and out of in any order. It also comes with a free CD containing the text of the book plus PowerPoints to use with the lessons.

The author offers workshops on Working with Will – please click here for more information.